126 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



wings are clouded with darker patches, particularly in the hind 

 marginal area. Last year I found a dark female, and obtained a 

 fiiscata male to pair. A good many of the resulting larvae died, and 

 I only reared eighteen examples, which emerged last March. Curiously 

 everyone was a female ; only four of these were typical. The re- 

 mainder were all dark in body and wing ; in three examples almost 

 uniformly rich dark brown nearly black, but with the lines perceptibly 

 blacker, the rest have a somewhat less dark hind marginal area. I 

 obtained again a pairing with a wild fuscata male, and have, as a 

 result, a batch of eggs. — (Eev.) W. G. Whittingham. 



SOCIETIES. 



Entomological Society op London. — Wednesday, March drd, 

 1909.— Dr. F. A. Dixey, M.A., M.D., President, in the chair.— Mr. 

 Francis Hamilton Lyon, of Addlestone, Surrey, was elected a Fellow 

 of the Society. — Mr. L. B. Prout, on behalf of himself and Mr. A. 

 Bacot, brought for exhibition a very extensive series of Acidalia 

 virgtdaria, Hb., bred in ten successive generations from various 

 crossings of the London and Hydros race, which had been under- 

 taken with a view to the further study of Mendelism. The results 

 showed non-Mendelian inheritance, there being no segregation with 

 pure and hybrid forms in definite proportions, thus supporting Mr. 

 Bacot's opinion that such were only to be expected in cases of 

 hybridization of forms in which Natural Selection had virtually 

 eliminated intermediates. A discussion followed in which Mr. Bacot, 

 Dr. T. A. Chapman, Mr. G. Meade- Waldo, and the President took 

 part, Mr. A . Harrison pointing out that in similar experiments 

 conducted by himself with Mr. H. Main with British Pieris napi x 

 P. var. bryonice from Switzerland carried through three generations, 

 they had quite failed to obtain Mendelian proportions, but in the case 

 of Aplccta nebidosa the Mendelian proportions were absolute. — Mr. 

 H. M. Edelsten showed a living pupa of Pieris rapce attached to a 

 blade of Clivia, the deep green pigment assimilating closely to the 

 coloration of the leaf. — Mr. R. Adkin exhibited what appeared to be 

 a hybrid between Zygcena fllipenduUe and Z. achillece, taken by Mr. 

 A. W. Ronton in the neighbourhood of Oban, N.B.— Mr. J. W. Tutt 

 expressed his opinion that the form was an aberration of Z. filipen- 

 dulcB, and said that in nature the two species were unknown to 

 pair. — Mr. Hamilton H. Druce, F.L.S., F.E.S., communicated a 

 paper " On some new and little known Hesperiidae from Tropical 

 West Africa."— Mr. G. A. K. Marshall, F.Z.S., read a paper entitled 

 " Birds as a Factor in the production of Mimetic Resemblances in 

 Buttertiies." He explained that one of the chief criticisms directed 

 against the tlaeories of mimicry was to the effect that, on the whole, 

 birds did not destroy butterflies to any appreciable extent ; he had 

 therefore collected together all the available evidence bearing on the 

 question. It was contended also that the negative evidence on this 

 subject, which appeared to have been very genertilly accepted, was 

 really of very little scientific value, because in no case had it been 

 shown that the observer had any adequate knowledge of the actual 



